TOP 10: Exhibitions In February

The best art and museum exhibitions around Manchester this February

The newly refurbed and extended £15m Whitworth Gallery relaunches on Saturday 14 February with ten opening exhibitions, including a major solo exhibition from one of Britain’s most acclaimed contemporary artists, Cornelia Parker. Amongst some of Parker's signature works, including Cold Dark Matter (1991), will be many new works including two new commissions. Parker's also been tinkering with graphene - read here.

As we approach the General Election on 7 May, the PHM will unveil an object from every UK general election over the past 110 years, from Harold Wilson's pipe to propaganda posters. This exhibition will develop as the election campaigns run there course and ask 'how we got the vote' and 'what we should do with it'.

For Posterity brings together six artists whose practice engages with 'chance, failure and the functions of objects'. The title of the exhibition is drawn from curator Lucy Harvey's research into Burnley-based filmmaker Sam Hanna's documentaries (1940-80) and her desire to depict 'old English traditional crafts for posterity'. Harvey will be producing work periodically in the gallery throughout the exhibition.

Another of The Whitworth's 'opening ten' exhibitions, this stunning installation comes from New York-based Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, a man renowned for his work with gunpowder including the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Unmanned Nature (2008) includes a 45-metre long, four metre-high gunpowder drawing, and this will be the first time the installation – first commissioned by the Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art – has been shown outside Japan.

Beninois artist Romuald Hazoume, one of Africa's most celebrated contemporary artists, brings this new work to Manchester Museum featuring swarms of multicoloured butterflies made from the off-cuts of vibrant African wax-print fabrics from Benin.

One of China's most talented up-and-comers, Sun Xun's What Happened In The Year Of The Dragon will have its UK premiere projected onto the side of St Ann's Church in the city centre as part of Manchester's Chinese New Year celebrations.

February is your last opportunity to catch MAG's major group exhibition marking the Centenary of the First World War, exploring how artists have communicated the impact of military conflict on the body, mind, environment and human senses between 1914 and 2014.

As the Cornerhouse on Oxford Road comes to an end (or a full stop) before the move to the all-new £25m HOME arts centre at First Street, the Cornerhouse will hand over exhibition spaces to their 'invigilators' - a range of local artists and creatives who'll investigate the building top-to-bottom creating site-specific pieces.

Your last chance this month to catch the Museum of Science and Industry's celebration of track cycling, technology and teamwork in Manchester - the home of British Cycling. The city’s affiliation with cycling has its roots in the very earliest days of sport, beginning with the ‘boneshaker’ - one of the first British bikes manufactured in Salford in 1868.

This exhibition celebrates the legacy of Aldus Manutius (1449–1515), an Italian humanist scholar who founded the Aldine Press at Venice. The John Rylands Library holds one of the largest collections of Aldine editions in the world. Many of these come from the Spencer library, purchased by Mrs Rylands in 1892.

John Rylands

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